Dr. Jim Chirico, the Medical Officer of Health and Executive Officer of the North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit, broke his silence late Friday afternoon and agreed to media interviews.
He answered some of the questions most often asked by people following the case of Dunaj, the Downtown Doberman.
The dog is no longer in Canada. Its owner Rob Szalas is facing further action from the Health Unit.
Here are the highlights.
BT: Why did it take four dog bites for the Health unit to take action?
JC: Nobody ever wants to see any animal destroyed, especially me. We would not do that unless we had evidence that there was an issue.
We deal with about 400 dog bites a year and fortunately the vast majority of the injuries are really minor and the animals don’t bite a second time. And that’s because a vast majority of the owners really are responsible and behave responsibly and put measures in place to prevent further bites.
Each bite is assessed with the criteria (Dog Owner’s Liability Act). So we base our actions on those criteria. Really, it’s the dog’s past and present behaviour, the injuries caused by the biting or attack, unusual contributing circumstances to justify the dog’s actions, and the probability that the dog’s actions will be repeated.
But most important, and what needs to be focussed on here, is precautions taken by the owner to preclude similar attacks in the future. But in this case, each bite was assessed for the risk and we gave Mr. Szalas every opportunity to comply to prevent further attacks.
After the second attack he was informed of it and he had a verbal warning. After the third he also got a written warning. And the reason we do that is because we do what we call “progressive enforcement”.
However, if we felt on the very first bite that the circumstances were such, were so compelling, we would have issued an order to have the dog destroyed.
The last thing we want to do is destroy any animal. And the vast majority of owners are responsible.
In this case, it was after the fourth bite that it was very clear to us that Mr. Szalas was not going to comply and protect the public.
The decision to euthanize the dog was made because of Mr. Szalas’ repeated failure to take responsibility for his dog and his failure to ensure that precautions were in place to prevent further attacks despite repeated warnings.
We felt the probability of future attacks was highly likely because of the dogs past behaviour and Mr. Szalas’ past behaviour of refusing to take precautions.
And the dog’s physical potential for inflicting harm was great. So what Mr. Szalas tried to do in the media, he essentially wanted to have the case tried in social media.
The decision to euthanize the dog was not based on his claim that it was a singular event of a drunk that provoked it. That is not what happened with regard to the reason why this order was issued.
BT: Where is the proof?
JC: It is a false statement to say no-one has seen the evidence. The evidence of the four dog bites is real, it is compelling, and there is no way we’re going to euthanize a dog without having the evidence. We don’t do that.
Mr. Szalas was given hard evidence of the four dog bites, his lawyer has seen it and so has the Health Services Review Board. The legal process was followed. Mr. Szalas had legal representation and he had the opportunity to argue his case before the Health Services Appeal and Review Board. He failed to take any steps to argue his case to the board. He chose to argue it on Facebook. He mislead the public about the evidence he had in his possession about the dog bite.
And the probability this would occur again was great, and he really did nothing to address that, and he failed to comply with what he was instructed to do by the Board.
We received no materials from Mr. Szalas contesting our evidence of four dog bites, in fact we even had him sign off every time there was a dog bite on each and every incident.
In order to disclose that evidence to the public the identities of the victims would be compromised and we’re not going to allow that to happen, especially because of the threats that were made in the media.
BT: If the dog had bitten four people, why was he released over Christmas?
JC: All of these threats that were made against the victims, we did not want this to go to an open hearing in court. So we made a compromise. And the compromise was that, because we felt we had a moral obligation to these victims and were not going to put these victims through another circus that occurred in social media and potentially be harmed by having open hearings.
We compromised by saying, and they agreed to it, that we would have a hearing that was written submissions only and not an open hearing, and that way we could protect the victims.
Had Mr. Szalas not tried to have this tried in the social media, then none of this would have happened. It would have been an open hearing. But he chose otherwise.
We agreed to let that happen, as a compromise, only though under strict confinement rules that Mr. Szalas agreed to and he broke because he didn’t behave responsibly and he didn’t do what he said he was going to do. That’s why we released it (the dog).
BT: When Dunaj was ordered back from its owner after Christmas, what was the breach?
JC: After the release of the dog back into Mr. Szalas’ care, we received evidence of a breach of the conditions of compliance. We have sworn testimony and photographs to substantiate these claims. These were presented to the Health services Appeal and Review Board. Mr. Szalas was provided with the opportunity to test this evidence and he chose not to.
BT: Why did you try and seize the dog in an unmarked van with Sudbury SPCA employees?
JC: Mr. Szalas was in breach of the conditions. Mr. Szalas, upon his legal advice, we went through his lawyer on this, he was to surrender the dog. It was agreed they were to surrender the dog, and we took his word that he would surrender the dog, then he refused to do so.
Because the Humane society had taken some much unjustified bad publicity over this. They did nothing wrong. They did what was asked of them to care for the dog. It was all based on a lot of the bad press that was given to them and the pressures they were under. We actually had an order that it could be released to the Humane Society or the SPCA and it was my decision to have the SPCA involved.
It doesn’t really matter who was involved. Mr. Szalas was supposed to relinquish the dog and he chose not to.
BT: Szalas says you showed up by surprise at 11 instead of noon.
JC: Mr. Szalas is incorrect in his reporting of that. Through Mr. Szalas’ lawyer, we were able to pick up the dog by the 11 o’clock deadline, and he was not there at 11 o’clock. And when he did show up at noon, he indicated, against his lawyer’s advice that he would not give up the dog. The timing is not what’s important here. What’s important is that he knew he had to give up the dog. He agreed to it in the original order, with his lawyer, that if there was a breach the dog would be surrendered to us. And there would be an opportunity for him to defend and to provide materials to the Health Services Board to state his case and basically test any evidence of the breach. Nothing was going to happen to the dog until the Board ruled on both sides.
We contended there was a breach. He had every opportunity to refute that, to provide evidence that it didn’t happen and he chose not to comply with that.
BT: In retrospect, would you have handled this differently?
JC: No, I don’t believe that we would have, other than we wouldn’t have trusted Mr. Szalas.
Each bite was properly investigated and assessed and I felt that each bite actions that were taken, were warranted and that we tried to give the owners a chance to behave responsibly and he did not do that and he had more than enough opportunities to do that.
The only other thing that I would have probably done---is knowing Mr. Szalas could not be trusted, we may have reconsidered not releasing the dog to him.
